


The Misadventures of Rabies Man and His Faithful Companion

by foursugarcubes



Category: Dragalia Lost (Video Game)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Camping, Durant Gets To Swear Only Once, Fluff, Getting Lost, Wolf Yoga (?), dog yoga, learning to love, this is a great dynamic i loved writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foursugarcubes/pseuds/foursugarcubes
Summary: He’s tired, he’s sleepy, and the moonlight that washes over his form does nothing to comfort him. His wolves nap peacefully by his side and occasionally nudge him in their sleep, as if they could sense his emotions. He cards his hand gently through their fur in a constant, rhythmic motion, soothing himself as much as he soothes them.
Relationships: Durant & Maribelle (Dragalia Lost)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	The Misadventures of Rabies Man and His Faithful Companion

**Author's Note:**

> for dani!! happy (terribly late) birthday i hope you like this!!

In all his days, he never expected to face such a difficult task. He has fought countless enemies, dealt with dozens of backstabbings, and the bounty on his wanted list is almost comparable to that of the seventh scion’s.

But this? This is something he couldn’t prepare for. 

He’s tired, he’s sleepy, and the moonlight that washes over his form does nothing to comfort him. His wolves nap peacefully by his side and occasionally nudge him in their sleep, as if they could sense his emotions. He cards his hand gently through their fur in a constant, rhythmic motion, soothing himself as much as he soothes them.

He looks to the third figure, in between his wolves.

Bundled up in his jacket is a mess of bright pink hair, lightly snoring away against soft fur, with her thumb in her mouth. She looks equally as tired as Durant, save for the look of contentment on her face.

Durant runs a hand through his hair, sighing. He finally settles down on the hard ground, crossing his arms and attempting to get some shut eye. He trusts in his wolves to protect them.

~*~*~

…it begins like this.

It’s Dog Yoga Day. Every week for the past month or so, Durant visits a clearing close to Laranoa’s village for some training with his wolves… and some additional… support. 

“You gotta learn how to love them more, Durant! Love _people_ more!” Laranoa, his faithful assistant chirps (she says this every single time). “How are they gonna learn if all you do with them is train and fight and fight and train?” (She says this too.) He always retorts with some answer about duty and leadership, even if he knowns some truth rings clear in her words.

And so, the five of them — Durant, Laranoa and their respective pets — have Dog Yoga Day together. Once a week. It’s… fulfilling, Durant supposes. To do something other than boss people around and take care of dirty work. Relaxing with his two closest companions is… nice. Laranoa has shown quite the skill herself; they’re in the same position as leaders of their respective communities, but Laranoa seems to bear all of the weight so… easily. Without a care in the world.

(Durant thinks he could learn something from that. From her.)

She always ends their sessions with a smile on her face, her happy-to-help aura still radiating off of her in heaps. Durant on the other hand, is always tired afterwards. Some of the poses that come to Laranoa as naturally as breathing feel like leaping over mountains for the mad dog. The wolves on the other hand, always seem much happier visiting Laranoa and Rolf, their tails wagging all the way back to the Halidom.

…except this time they don’t make it back to the Halidom.

It must’ve been his tiredness, or a wrong turn at the wrong tree, because now he faces trouble much larger than the Downward Dog Pose. He and his wolves pace restlessly through the trees, following an uncertain path for what seems to feel like hours. The walk back should have taken them one at most. His wolves begin to whimper, nudging his sides in comfort. They know how he feels.

The Mad Dog of Valkaheim is lost.

He’s never been one to panic (obviously), but his subordinates tend to fret whenever they get worried about him, and he hates dealing with all their questions and giving them proper explanations all the time, not to mention he hates being worried over.

Durant grumbles, _ecstatic_ , and stubbornly continues walking in the same direction. His wolves trot along at a leisurely pace, constantly trying to get in front of him and look at his face, and Durant could almost see the question mark above their heads. _Are you sure we’re going the right way?_ Their eyes seem to say.

“I don’t know,” he tells them, blurting out his answers before he can ask himself why he’s talking to dogs —“If we choose a direction, we’ll at least end up somewhere with a landmark and we’ll be able to find our way from there.”

So they go. And go. And go. And g-

“Where the fuck are we,” Durant mutters under his breath. He’s exhausted. He can’t even tell how long they’ve been walking for. The sun is starting to set and there hasn’t been any recognizable landmark in sight. His wolves’ whimpers increase in length. He’s slowly losing his temper.

He’s about to give up for the night and just sit around when he hears an unfamiliar noise, different from all the shuffling and rustling of leaves, different from anything he’s heard in the past several hours.

Someone’s crying.

His instincts kick in. He rushes towards the noise, his wolves hot on his heels. He doesn’t stop to think about the dangers that could arise; he might as well be running blindly into a trap right now, but he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try.

Durant reaches a clearing, to see a little girl tightly curled in on herself, leaning against the trunk of a tree. Her shoulders shake with little sobs. Giving a signal to his wolves to stay where they were, he slowly approaches, making his footsteps as loud as possible.

“Uh, hey there,” he says cautiously, as he stands a few feet away. “You alright?”

The girl whips her head around, her pink hair whirling. She sniffles and seems to shrink in on herself. “Who are you?” she asks softly, and Durant feels his heart tighten.

“I’m Durant,” he answers in the same volume, “Durant from uhh…” _saying the Cruor Hounds might give her the wrong impression…_ “from... New Alberia.”

The girl’s eyes widen, and she sits up further. “New Alberia? Like the Halidom?”

“Oh yeah, I live there, I guess.”

She gasps. “Do you know Euden then? Or Luca?”

Durant almost snorts at the mentions. “Yeah, I do. But never mind that now; are you alright?”

The girl blinks, and her eyes begin to water again. Durant immediately puts his hands up, surprised, and tries to quickly come up with a way to console her while also thinking about what he might have said to make her cry-

She holds up her hands that she’s been holding closely to her stomach, high enough for Durant to see. In her palms is a baby bird, completely unharmed but almost as alarmed as Durant is. It chirps nervously.

“She fell out of her nest and I can’t help her get back,” the girl mumbles.

And Durant understands.

~*~*~

Maribelle — as he finds out her name is — leads him towards the bird’s tree not far from the clearing. His wolves curiously start to approach and instead of shrieking in fear, the girl screams in pure joy, going up to pet them. The weird troupe continues on until Maribelle stops and points directly to the nest in the tree; it’s on the shortest branch and yet still twice the little girl’s height. With a quick jump, the bird was back in its nest in no time, snuggling up to its parents. 

“Thank you so much, mister! You’re so cool!” He could almost see the stars in her eyes.

“Just Durant is fine, Maribelle,” he grunts. “Now… I was wondering if you could help me… my wolves and I are trying to find our way back to the Halidom.”

“Ohhhhh,” Maribelle says, with the knowledge of the cosmos, “so you’re lost.”

He scoffs. “No, we just took a wrong turn somewhere and then we heard you. We weren’t ever lost.”

“Nuh-uh! My house is hours away from the Halidom and we’re right next to it! There’s no way you could have just heard me from all the way over there!” The child puts her hands on her hips to look just a bit more menacing, and Durant is so surprised by how well it’s working. He looks back at his wolves. They stare back at him. He swears he can see them shrug. He turns back to Maribelle. He musters up the biggest breath he can possibly manage.

“…yeah we’re lost,” he says, as quiet as possible.

Maribelle grins back defiantly, tilting her head up. “Good! Now I can return the favour and show you how to get back! Follow me guys!” The wolves look at her, hesitant, and slowly pad after her, leaving Durant in the dust.

“Wait!” he says, trying to catch up, almost losing his wolves in the fading daylight. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

She smiles and nods fervently. “I always go this way to the Halidom! I know it by heart!” And her words are so heartfelt and her smile so pure, how could Durant not trust her?

So they walk. And walk. And walk. And walk. And w-

“Where the f- Maribelle, do you know where we are?”

“Yes.” A slight pause. “We’re… in the woods!”

“Maribelle.”

She sighs. “Okay, okay I don’t know where we are! Most of the time when I walk to the Halidom it’s not… dark…” Durant could barely see her pout with how dark it was.

“It’s fine,” he replies gruffly. “We might as well make camp here and sleep until morning.”

The girl’s entire demeanour changes. “Camping? I’ve done that before with Lowen and Elias! This is gonna be so fun!”

The two gather the materials needed for a small campfire in barely any time at all. Maribelle brings back a few too many sticks, piled so high that Durant couldn’t even see her head. Durant sets and lights the fire with expert ease, coaxing it into a reasonably-sized flame. Maribelle watches in awe the entire time.

“How often do you go camping?” She asks, after they settle down, her hands ruffling through the wolves’ fur, one on each side of her.

Durant furrows his brows. Thinking of all the times he’s sat down in front of a fire, before a mission, a battle; the times he’s had to keep watch for his pack in case of an ambush. Could that really be considered camping?

“…not that often, really,” he says at last. “I’m just good at making fires.” One of his wolves make an odd bark, and stares at Durant from where she lays.

Maribelle giggles. “She says that you’re lying and you do this all the time.” Durant just stares, stunned. The wolf sounds a whimper, and Maribelle nods. “Ohh, I see! The times that you go camping aren’t really _camping_ camping because you’re on a mission! So you can’t actually have any fun.”

“I… you can talk to my wolves?”

“Of course, I can! How do you think I knew what tree the little birdie came from?” Maribelle puffs up her chest, beaming. “All the creatures of this forest are my friends, and your doggies are no exception!”

Durant swallows thickly, unconsciously sitting straighter. “What are they saying right now?”

The other wolf gives small bark, and Maribelle scratches behind its ears. “Um, she says she loves you.” Durant almost gets whiplash by how fast his head turns. The wolf wags her tail and lets out another bark. “Oh! And she wants more pets.”

As if possessed, Durant’s hand reaches up, finding its place underneath the wolf’s chin. The wagging gets fiercer. The other wolf starts whining, nudging at Durant’s other hand, and Durant definitely doesn’t need a translator for that. He pets them both.

“You’re all so cute!” Maribelle squeals. “It’s like you’re actually camping now!” Durant’s hands still for a split second before immediately resuming; something only the wolves would notice. 

He chuckles softly. “Sure kid. Whatever you say.”

With every passing second, Maribelle’s eyes begin to droop further and further, her head drifting downwards and coming back up when she catches herself in the act. “I think it’s bedtime,” she yawns, burrowing into one of the wolves. The other wolf pads over to her side, brushing up directly against her. They both make eye contact with him as they lay their heads on their paws. He nods back.

Durant sits next to the bunch, continuing to feed the fire as the others doze off. At some capacity, it still feels like he’s on a mission. His body is still tense and alert regardless of his fatigue, looking out for any dangers that might come about them. Not to mention that they’re still _lost_. 

Then, Maribelle lets out a small sound, her face wrinkling up. She shivers and buries herself deeper into the wolf’s fur. 

Durant blinks. Of course, she would be feeling cold, he realizes, she’s not wearing the right clothes to be outside at night! Hurriedly, he shrugs off his jacket and carefully places it on top of her, tucking it in at the sides. The little frown she had previously curves into a soft smile, and she continues on sleeping peacefully. Durant sighs, running a hand through his hair. 

In none of his previous missions involve sitting around, chatting with a little girl, or playing around with his wolves, he thinks. In none of them could he have shown care like lifting the little bird back into its nest, or giving Maribelle his jacket, taking comfort in her smile…

It is different this time around… isn’t it?

~*~*~

“That does sound like something Luca would do,” Durant replies, walking alongside the little girl. He found himself listening to all of Maribelle’s Halidom stories, all of them surprisingly funny.

“And then Lowen said- oh! There’s my house over there!” Maribelle runs excitedly over and flings open the door. “Grandma! I’m home!”

“My Maribelle, you had me so worried! Look at you, you’re covered in dirt-“ The elderly woman dusts her off, little utterances continuing to spill from her mouth. “I’m so glad you’re safe!” she says at last, pulling her granddaughter into a hug.

“Of course! Mister Durant here took care of me while I was lost. We had a good time camping!”

The grandma looks up at the man in question. “Thank you, Durant, for taking care of her.”

He puts up his hands, smiling. “It’s really no problem. We really did have a good time… camping. She… she took care of me as well.”

She nods. “That’s good to hear. Would you like to come in for some tea? You and your wolves?”

“I’d like that.”

Once Durant and his wolves had their share, they set off once again to the Halidom, this time with proper, detailed directions. The wolves whined at the thought of leaving Maribelle but made sure to get lots of pets before they left.

“Bye bye!” Maribelle yelled from the entrance of her house. “I look forward to camping with you again!”

Durant waved back, grinning. “See you around, kid! I look forward to it too!”

At the back of his mind, Laranoa’s voice giggled in an I-told-you-so manner. _Learning to love and have fun, aren’t ya?_ It seemed to say.

And for once, Durant couldn’t think of anything he would say back.

**Author's Note:**

> durant: i'm a resistance group leader
> 
> maribelle: ohh  
> maribelle:  
> maribelle:  
> maribelle: what do you resist?


End file.
